I'm still not sure the info in that article does much to to answer the chicken/egg question: Does better recruiting make your team better or are you recruiting better because you have a better team.
Their "five-star" class:
Alabama - won the 2009 national championship
Auburn - undefeated in 2004
Florida - won 2006 and 2008 national championships
Florida State - played for national championship in 2000 and won the ACC in 00-02-03-05
LSU - won 2007 national championship
Ohio State - won 2002 national championship and won B1G in 02-05-06-07-08-09
Oklahoma - won 200 national championship and won Big XII in 02-04-06-07-08
Texas - won 2005 national championship and won Big XII in 05-09
That leaves Georgia (pretty similar success over that timeframe as Nebraska) Michigan (noticeably worse over that period) and Notre Dame (one year better than NU; outside the Top 25 every other year).
Then you get to their "four-star" list. Oregon is obviously at the top with Stanford right there as well. After that, I'm not sure anyone else on that list has done better than Nebraska over that time: Probably South Carolina; Clemson the last couple years but it would be close over the last six; similar story with A&M & UCLA; I think the Huskers out-do Arky, Cal, Miami, UNC, Ole Miss, Penn St., Tennessee and Washington without too much trouble.
So, considering many like to complain about Nebraska's poor recruiting under Pelini, it's mainly only the teams that were already national title contenders when Pelini took over that have surpassed our success on the field. Most other teams have at best marginally better success than Nebraska and we've done quite a bit better than several despite our "sub standard" recruiting.